


holy shit is that an entire box full of knives

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Other, Touch-Starved, they/them pidge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 19:58:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10646991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: The person finally fumbles their glasses back onto their face, visibly smudged but marginally better at least. They relax for a moment. “Oh, uh, sorry, you startled me, haha, I’m blind as a bat without--” they look at him with their glasses on and scream again.Keith looks down at himself and tries to put himself in their shoes, seeing himself for the first time. Okay, so maybe he hasn’t washed these clothes in a while. The color of the old gutted fish blood and his faded red shirt are barely any different anyways. And all right, so maybe he hasn’t used soap in years, but he’s washed himself! Standing under a waterfall for a few seconds about once a week counts. His hunting knife is pretty big though. Maybe they’d feel better if he was holding one of his smaller knives.





	holy shit is that an entire box full of knives

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Hmm, I'm really struggling with this WIP that's got a deadline. I know what'll get me out of my funk! Wasting my time writing a random pairing for a random prompt for a fandom I don't do much with when I don't have to. Yes. 
> 
> The prompt: Lives alone in the woods by a waterfall and finds a confused lost person walking around AU.

As usual, the rising sun and the singing birds woke up Keith at dawn. He didn’t have to actually get out of his bed any time soon and his circadian rhythm was used to it, so he didn’t mind.

Eventually, he got up. He relieved himself, splashed some cold water in his face to wake himself up, and put on some more layers. Food. He opened up a can (beans today) and warmed it some over the bunsen burner. Two minutes only, or else he’d have to go back to civilization to buy more gas a few years ahead of schedule. He grimaced at the thought before he went back to shoveling slightly-warmer-than-lukewarm beans into his mouth. They were so soft he didn’t even have to chew.

He closed his eyes as he ate and just listened to the nature outside his doorstep, rushing water, tweeting birds, rustling leaves--

And sniffling?

His eyes snapped open as he tensed. He froze, listening intently, wishing he could creep back over his bed to retrieve his knife from under his pillow without interrupting the oh so quiet sound with his softly rustling clothes and creaking floorboards. Or perhaps the knife in his jacket that he hasn’t put on yet because he hasn’t gone outside yet to check on his shack (well, the shack that’s smaller than the one he sleeps in anyways) to see if his smoked meat is still doing well. Or the hunting knife hanging on its hook by the door, ready to gut game. Or one of the knives from his knife box. Or--

The sniffling becomes a _sneeze_ _,_ twigs snapping underfoot, a half resigned _hello_ calling out. Well. Whoever’s out there is probably not trying to hide their presence, then. Reluctantly, he slowly, silently stands up and walks up to his door. He puts on his jacket, hand slipping into his pocket to assure himself of his jacket knife’s presence. He hesitates for a moment before grabbing his hunting knife as well. Can never be too careful.

He opens his door and slips out of his shack just in time to see the sniffling person trip face first into the river eight feet away. He stares at them silently as they swear up a storm and start looking for a clean and dry part of their clothes to dry their glasses on. They seem to be having a hard time, considering they’re covered from head to toe in water, mud, leaves and twigs, and something sticky looking that Keith can’t immediately identify. Something else he can’t immediately identify is the person’s gender. They’re pretty androgynous looking, baggy, green clothes giving him no cues to run off of, short hair, short stature, and no muscles or fat to speak of. He wonders if his trouble with identifying them has anything to do with the fact that he hasn’t spoken to another human being for multiple years now. Oh well. Not important.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, and the person screams.

He winces at the unfamiliar loud sound, and at the way his throat stings due to only those few words. He doesn’t really talk much any longer. No one to talk to. Just the way he likes it.

The person finally fumbles their glasses back onto their face, visibly smudged but marginally better at least. They relax for a moment. “Oh, uh, sorry, you startled me, haha, I’m blind as a bat without--” they look at him with their glasses on and scream again.

Keith looks down at himself and tries to put himself in their shoes, seeing himself for the first time. Okay, so maybe he hasn’t washed these clothes in a while. The color of the old gutted fish blood and his faded red shirt are barely any different anyways. And all right, so maybe he hasn’t used soap in years, but he’s washed himself! Standing under a waterfall for a few seconds about once a week counts. His hunting knife is pretty big though. Maybe they’d feel better if he was holding one of his smaller knives.

“I’ll get another knife,” he rasps, and watches as the person stands up so quickly that they immediately fall back into the river. He idly opens his door, puts his hunting knife back on its hook, and reaches into his pocket and retrieves his smaller jacket knife all without taking a single step or looking away from the stranger. Heck, he’s pretty sure he could take this twig of a person without a knife at all. They seem to be doing a pretty good job of defeating themselves.

“Is this better?” he asks, and god, he’s really getting sick of this speaking thing. He could be eating beans right now.

“What!” the person asks.

Keith waves his jacket knife in the air and the person pales despite already being pretty pale. “Its smaller.”

“Are you going to kill me?” they ask.

Keith stares at them, incredulous, before slowly shaking his head. He wants to ask them why they’d think that, but he doesn’t want to waste the words. He’ll just go ahead and assume they’re a paranoid weirdo.

They stare at each other in silence for a while. Keith is fine with letting it stretch for as long as is necessary. Silence is his status quo. He just hopes that they’ll remember his question on their own, because the way his throat already aches really doesn’t make him want to repeat himself.

The person shifts uncomfortably. “Um. Okay. Thanks.”

Keith continues staring at them.

“For not killing me,” they elaborate.

 _Why would I kill you_ _,_ Keith experimentally tries telepathically projecting to them. The silence continues. No dice. Unfortunate.

“I’m Pidge!” they try, sounding desperately bright.

“Keith,” Keith says.

Pidge seems to relax some at that, and slowly stands up. By the time Keith wonders if he should help them up they’re already standing, trudging out of the river and closer to Keith while looking sort of scared about their choices.

“Um, okay, so,” they say. “This is how it is: I came out here to hunt for bigfoot.” They pause, looking at him intently. Keith just nods. There have been some bigfoot sightings in the forest, partly the reason why he’d decided to become a hermit here instead of somewhere a little warmer. Like a dessert. That could have been nice. Maybe he’d see chupacabra if he got a goat.

“And I… got lost. Several hours ago. And my allergy pills are starting to lose their effects and I’m almost out of sunblock too and that’s going to be _ugly_. So, like,” they glance doubtfully at his shacks, “could you help me out?”

Keith waits for a minute for them to continue before giving up and speaking up first. Can’t win them all. “By leading you back out?”

They scowl reflexively at that before smoothing out their expression. Keith stares, fascinated. It’s been a long time since he’s seen, much less interacted with, another human being. He’d forgotten how quickly the face could move, almost like another limb, but with much, much more detail. 

“I just got here,” they whine. “I haven’t even seen bigfoot.”

 _If I haven’t seen bigfoot for several years then you won’t within a weekend,_ he thinks but doesn’t say. Too many words for no good reason. They don’t look like they’d listen to him, anyways.

“Then what do you want me to do?” he asks.

“Caaan I live… with… you?” They give him a shiteating grin.

Keith stares at them.

“Just for like a week, tops! There’s no way I’m going to find my tent and all of my supplies again in this damn place! Please! I took all of my sick days off at once for this! I told everyone that I’ve got mono! I don’t have enough money to go and buy everything I need again and--”

God they talk a lot. At least compared to him. Everyone talks a lot compared to him. It was another part of the reason why he’d moved out here, alone, remote. There were many reasons for why he did it. He was weird. He was already lonely anyways. He never understood what was going on, not really. He didn’t get along with people, didn’t “get” them, seemed to keep getting into scuffle after scuffle even though he never _meant_ to.

And Shiro was dead.

Being alone out in nature was simpler, easier.

Pidge was still talking, making their pitch. “-and I don’t even snore, that’s my brother!”

They reach out abruptly and grab his hand, the one that isn’t holding a knife. Their grip is warm. Keith stares at it. His throat is dry suddenly, instead of just hurting.

Pidge ducks down some so that they’ve got eye contact again, and they shoot him such a painfully earnest look. “Please?”

It’s been years since someone touched him. Why are his eyes burning?

He nods, for reasons beyond him.

They smile, and it’s been years since someone smiled at him, even when he makes his brief and sporadic ventures into civilization to load up on gas and such. People are scared of him down there, in the cities and towns and gas stations. He looks weird. Dangerous. Acts weird and dangerous too, apparently.

It’s amazing, the way a face can change so much in such a short span of time. In only seconds, faster than he could formulate a thought or string a sentence together. Their smile is beautiful, in a way a graceful reindeer or delicate flower isn’t. Maybe he should buy a mirror the next time he’s in town. Just to get used to faces again. Because this is. A lot.

“You’re weird,” he says without thinking because now he suddenly _isn’t_ fine with the silence.

“I-- what!? _No!_ _You’re_ weird!” Pidge replies indignantly. After a moment of thought they add, “And I’m the one who’s asking the bloody, knife-wielding, disturbingly quiet hermit who I just met in the woods if I can live with him in his isolated murder shack for a few days so I can hunt for bigfoot while no one knows where I really am.”

“It’s not a murder shack,” he weakly protests, too distracted by the fact that they’re still holding his hand to be truly offended and is his skin _tingling_?

“Okay, so maybe I’m a little weird. But you’re in no position to throw stones! Er, I mean, call me black? Shit, what’s the saying…”

Keith stares at them. They are pretty obviously white. He notices the way their light brown hair flips a little up at the ends, like they sleep with curlers in it at night. Keith can’t see Pidge doing that, even though he’s only known them for all of five minutes.

His heart hurts, for some reason. In a good way.

Pidge is still mumbling to themself when Keith speaks up again. His throat is going to _kill_ him tomorrow. “You’re not going to find bigfoot within a week. Trust me.”

Pidge looks at him all offended, opening their mouth to talk at him some more. So confident.

“So come next year as well. And the one after that. You can stay in my murder shack. Wait, it’s not a murder shack.” He frowns.

Pidge snorts at him and smiles again. Pretty. “I’ll see how many times I can get away with getting mono.”

Keith smiles back. His face kind of hurts at the unfamiliarity of it, like his throat with talking. Pidge stares at him blankly, suddenly seemingly dazed.

“I think your sunblock is wearing out now,” Keith says. Their face is reddening.

“Oh, fuck, um, yeah! Sunblock! Totally! Shit! Better get inside your murder shack and out of the sun then.”

Keith doesn’t bother correcting them on his shack again. He swallows and leads them inside. They’re still holding his hand. His skin still burns where they’re touching. He thinks, maybe, maybe he can get used to talking again. Smiling again. Being touched. 

“So, do you survivalist types stock up on condoms too? Just curious. Nice canned beans collection, by the way. Holy shit is that an _entire box full of knives?_ Why!?”

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> And so they became biannual fuck/let's-find-bigfoot buddies. Words overused in this fic: stares, knife. Consistent use of tense: mercilessly violated.


End file.
